Current Government Policy will not end Homelessness, says Fr McVerry

NEWS RELEASE

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25 November 2007

For Immediate Release

Current Government Policy will not end Homelessness, says Fr McVerry

Need for a Boom in Social Housing
Ireland will need to see a boom in social housing, along with other radical changes in policy, if it is to ever achieve the goal of ending homelessness, says Fr Peter McVerry of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice.

In an article, ‘Homes Not Hostels: Rethinking Homeless Policy’, published the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, Fr McVerry and co-author, Eoin Carroll, say that “the failure to provide suitable, permanent accommodation has necessitated the development of a complex labyrinth of services” for homeless people. Yet many remain homeless, year after year, becoming increasingly damaged and frustrated, making it more and more difficult for services to meet their needs.

‘Housing with Supports’ rather than ‘Supported Housing’
Calling for a shift in policy “away from the provision of hostel and other dedicated types of accommodation for homeless people”, McVerry and Carroll say the focus needs to become the provision of “permanent, good quality homes in the community, with suitable supports, where necessary”. This would mean a move from meeting the needs of homeless people in ‘supported housing’, of varying types, to meeting their needs in ‘housing with support’. For the people now affected by homelessness, a change in policy of the kind suggested would lead to a situation where “instead of their housing being temporary and their supports being more or less permanent, their housing would be permanent and their supports could be more or less temporary, depending on their needs”.

They assert: “Most homeless people simply want a place they can call home. Some need varying levels of support to enable them to keep a home. But a key to their own front door is the symbol of the desires of homeless people.”

Government’s ‘Inexcusable Failure’ on Social Housing
McVerry and Carroll emphasise that they are not criticising current services, or the staff that provide them, and they point out that in many respects services to meet the short-term needs of homeless people have improved considerably in recent years. But they are critical of “the lack of political will to provide suitable, permanent accommodation for those who are poor, including those who are homeless”.

The foremost obstacles to a shift in policy, suggest McVerry and Carroll, is the dire shortage of suitable mainstream accommodation.  Criticising the record of successive governments regarding social housing provision they say: “During the past twelve years of unprecedented economic growth and surplus government revenues, the neglect of the Government to invest in an adequate expansion of social housing has been one of its most inexcusable failures”.

The Government’s commitment in the National Development Plan, published in January 2007, to provide around 8,600 new social housing units in each year up to 2013 will in fact result in only 7,400 net new social housing units, when allowance is made for continuing sales of local authority houses. McVerry and Carroll point out that this is 2,000 (18 per cent) fewer houses per year than was recommended by the National Economic and Social Council in 2005. Yet it is significantly more than has been achieved over the last seven years, with, for example, a net increase of only 4,506 in 2006, and an output of only 3,167 units of social housing in the first half of 2007.


Reliance on the Private Sector
McVerry and Carroll are also critical of the Government’s reliance on the private rented sector to provide for those who need public assistance with housing. They point out that the Rent Supplement Scheme, originally devised as a short-term measure, now provides accommodation support for 53,000 households, accounting for one third of all households receiving state housing assistance. Over 70 per cent of these households have long-term housing needs. The new Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) allows a local authority to lease accommodation from private landlords and then sub-let it to people in need of housing. McVerry and Carroll suggest that this scheme is yet another example of “the Government’s apparently ferocious appetite for private sector solutions to public policy needs”, and query why the option of providing an adequate supply of local authority owned housing was not preferred instead.

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For further information or for interviews, please contact Fr Peter McVerry SJ mobile 087 2579 616 or Fr Tony O’Riordan SJ  SJ Director Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice – mobile 087 9286 945


Note to editors:

‘Homes Not Hostels: Rethinking Homeless Policy’ is published in the November issue of Working Notes the Journal of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. The article in full is available to read online at www.workingnotes.ie.

Fr Peter McVerry SJ is a team member of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice and an executive director of the Peter McVerry Trust which provides support and accommodation to homeless young people.